Hayden Trenholm for the Aurora

Yesterday, I put up a post pimpin' my Identity Theft and Other Stories, from Red Deer Press, which is one of five finalist for the Aurora Award for Best Long-Form Work in English this year. And, indeed, I owe it to the publisher, who invested a lot of money in publishing my book, to do what I can to help the book do well, including at awards time. :)

But let me tell you about another book that's also on the ballot, and why it, too, deserves your very serious consideration: Defining Diana by my writing student (from back in 1996!) Hayden Trenholm, brought to us by the good folks at Bundoran Press Publishing House in Prince George, British Columbia.

Their gorgeous trade paperback sports this blurb from me:

Hayden Trenholm is a true original; an exciting new voice, tinged with sly wit. Defining Diana will grab you on the first page and won't let you go.

Hayden's proven he's an award-calibre writer: he won last year's Best Short Form Work in English Aurora Award (and in 1992, he won the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest).

There's an excellent interview with Hayden by Edward Willett -- himself a very deserving Aurora finalist this year in the same category -- here, and Ed reivews Hayden's book here: you know there's something special about a book when the authors of its competitors for an award are singing its praises. :)

I'm the proud owner of the very first signed copy of Defining Diana -- a gift from Hayden (I was MC at the book-launch party for the novel held at Toronto's Ad Astra). And -- lucky me! -- I got to read the wonderful sequel, Steel Whispers (which will be launched at the Montreal Worldcon in August), in manuscript, and offered this blurb:

Hayden Trenholm's Steel Whispers is an edge-of-your seat amalgam of police procedural and razor-sharp science fiction. The streets of Calgary never seemed so mean! Fans of Dashiell Hammett and William Gibson will both love this; a great novel by Canada's fastest-rising SF star.

The quality of Hayden's book is, of course, first and foremost, the reason you should consider voting for it -- but there's another reason, too.

See that pretty lady with Hayden below? That's Virginia O'Dine, the publisher of Bundoran Press, and she and her business partner Dominic Maguire fund that little operation out of their own pockets, and, despite having done some fabulous books so far, with more in the pipeline, they still don't have a distributor (which means their books aren't yet widely available in bookstores).

Having an Aurora Award proclaiming that the best English-Canadian science-fiction book of the year was one of theirs just might help them get the attention of a distributor. And, after all, getting attention for deserving works and their publishers is what the pro Aurora Awards are all about.

So, when you go to fill out your Aurora ballot, please do consider all the wonderful works that are nominated, including the excellent Defining Diana from the amazing Bundoran Press.


(Pictured: Author Hayden Trenholm and editor Virginia O'Dine, the Publisher of Bundoran Press, at McNally Robinson in Winnipeg in May 2008.)

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